


Permanent Record

by Tiriel



Category: Undercover Blues (1993)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 13:16:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13054749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiriel/pseuds/Tiriel
Summary: Jane Louise Blue's file is an interesting read.





	Permanent Record

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fabrisse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fabrisse/gifts).



“Sir, I have that dossier you requested.”

“Thank you. Do you have an opinion on it?”

“I think you should read it and see for yourself.”

* * *

**Transcript 1  
San Diego, California**

Banks: Mr. Green, this is Mrs. Banks, your daughter’s teacher. I wanted to discuss a recent classroom incident.

JAYBIRD: What kind of incident?

Banks: Well, during open playtime today she tried to teach several of the other students how to blink in Morse code in case they ever get kidnapped. While we appreciate her creativity and initiative, we don’t feel kidnapping is an appropriate topic for kindergarten. Is there something going on at home we should know about?

JAYBIRD: Just a moment, please.  
JAYBIRD, slightly muffled: She tried to teach the other kids to blink in Morse code. 

HERON, background: Oh how fabulous! We only showed her that once! 

JAYBIRD: I completely understand your concern, Mrs. Banks. Things are fine here at home, we just spent some time overseas for my work during the summer and we had to be extra cautious, is all. We’ll discuss it with her and let her know that it wasn’t appropriate. 

Banks: What kind of work do you do?

JAYBIRD: I sell replacement parts for water coolers.

Banks: How interesting. So you’ll talk to her?

JAYBIRD: Definitely. Thank you for the call.

HERON, background: Such a good girl!

* * *

Stapled to the transcript was a newspaper article from the same town, dated about a year later. “Police rescue local boy from kidnappers; he blinked to send a message.”

* * *

**Transcript 2  
Chicago, Illinois**

Gardner: Mrs. Brown, this is your daughter’s teacher, Ms. Gardner. I’d like to speak with you about something that happened at recess today.

HERON: Yes?

Gardner: It seems that she started a fistfight—

HERON: That doesn’t seem like my sweet girl, she’s not violent at all.

Gardner: Well, ma’am, she didn’t participate in the fistfight, she just instigated it. She told Joey that Sam said something rude about his father, and told Benjamin that Joey had stolen his baseball cards, and, well…

HERON: Please, go on.

Gardner: And while the fight was happening, someone opened the lock on the confiscated items drawer and emptied it. You know, where we keep the phones, toys, etc., that we’ve taken from the children because they were misbehaving or brought something they weren’t allowed to have at school? 

HERON: I’m confused. Are you accusing her of starting a fight or of theft?

Gardner: Both.

HERON: Did she have the confiscated items in her possession? And what kind of lock was on the drawer?

Gardner: No, they somehow got redistributed to all the students who they had belonged to. And it was a combination lock, although I don’t see how that’s relevant.

HERON: So she’s in trouble for a fight she didn’t participate in and a theft you have no evidence she committed, is that correct?

Gardner: Well, ma’am—

HERON: You’re suggesting a seven-year-old masterminded a fight as a distraction for a heist?

(Guffaws of muffled laughter in the background)

Gardner: When you put it like that, it does sound absurd, but—

HERON: Exactly. Is that all, Ms. Gardner?

Gardner: Yes, I suppose it is.

* * *

**Transcript 3 (excerpt)  
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania**

JAYBIRD: She punched who, Miss Duncan?

Duncan: Another third grade student, Mr. White. A boy by the name of David Smith. And she didn’t just punch him. The playground monitor says she did some kind of “kung fu flip thing” to him first, then punched him after he was on the ground.

JAYBIRD: Well, that’s not okay. I will definitely talk to her about that.

Duncan: And then she said his parents were spies. Russian spies.

JAYBIRD: Did she now?  
JAYBIRD, muffled: She said the kid she punched is from a family of Russian spies. (pause) Definitely worth checking out.

Duncan: I don’t know why she’d make something like that up. His parents are Canadian. So polite. 

JAYBIRD: Of course they are. My wife and I will ask her why she would say something like that, and we will talk to her about not punching people when they’re down.

* * *

Stapled to the transcript was a field report on Michael and Elaine Smith, a.k.a. Mikhail and Elena Antonov, who left the country with their son before they could be questioned.

* * *

**Transcript 4 (excerpt)  
Orlando, Florida**

HERON: So you think she cheated on the exam, Mrs. O’Brian, even though she only got 97%?

O’Brian: Yes, Mrs. Black. 

HERON: Based on what evidence?

O’Brian: She had several pages of what appeared to be cheat sheets.

HERON: “Appeared to be?”

O’Brian: Well, they were written in some kind of code. The math teacher looked at it and wasn’t able to figure it out.

HERON: Written in unbreakable code by a fifth grader, really? So how do you know they’re cheat sheets for the exam?

O’Brian: One of the other students says—

HERON: I will discuss it with her, but given that you have only hearsay and speculation to go on, I highly doubt she did anything inappropriate.

* * *

After that, the file was startlingly normal. Photos of a smiling girl with shiny hair on horseback, participating in track and field, carrying a large stack of books. A photo of the same girl smiling even wider while shooting skeet. Transcripts of excellent grades at a variety of good schools that somehow left her just a fraction of a point shy of valedictorian (and the accompanying required speech at graduation). “Did she stop?”

“I think she just got better at not getting caught, sir. Turn the page.”

Next was a police file about quite a lot of money missing from a prep school alumni fund, earmarked for a new polo grounds. The funds had been accessed with the proper password, then transferred offshore. The police had tracked several leads among the faculty and staff, but come to no conclusions. The page after that was a newspaper article about a groundbreaking ceremony for a new facility for a women’s shelter in the same city, thanks to “anonymous contributions” that were suspiciously similar in amount to the missing money.

After that, a newspaper article from another city about sports cars being stolen from and returned to local dealerships. They would be there in the morning, exactly where they’d been parked the night before, but they had clearly been driven. The Joy Rider, as the local paper nicknamed the perpetrator, in an unimaginative attempt at turning it into a human interest story, never took the same car more than once and somehow managed to evade all surveillance and alarm systems. Police had no suspects.

Another news article from another city, this one about a teacher’s firing after proof emerged that he was trying (unsuccessfully) to trade grades for sex. No one had suspected until an audiotape was delivered anonymously to the school board and the police.

A photo from a high school newspaper, a different city, of a large sailboat inside a school gym. No one knew how it had gotten there, but the presidential physical fitness exam had been canceled as a result.

Another article, same city: “Lab animals freed, college activists suspected.” It turned out that the activists had an airtight alibi, as they all were protesting in front of the local TV station that night over their use of a costumed dog in their weather segments. Police had no other suspects.

“Busy girl.”

College transcripts were next, and like the high school ones they were excellent but unremarkable. She had a dual major in History and Political Science. The next page was blank.

“Nothing for four years?”

“We’re not sure. But she did do a year abroad in Aldastan.”

“Let me guess, that would be right about the time that the people’s revolution started and the military government was deposed in favor of democratic rule?”

“Yes, sir. And that brings us up to today.”

“I’ve seen this kind of file before. She’ll either wind up running this place or making us all wish we’d never met her. Probably both. Very well. Bring in Heron and Jaybird, please?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Agent Blue, Agent Blue, as you no doubt know, your daughter Jane has applied to train at the Farm and we are considering bringing her on board. Is there anything we should know about her? Any unusual incidents in her history? Family secrets?”

Jane and Jeff smiled at one another, then at him. “No, of course not,” Jane said. “We made sure she had a chance at a perfectly normal childhood.”

Jeff added, “She’s an open book.”


End file.
